A Player's Guide to Pre-Course Resistence

by Perri Chase Dec 3, 2015

So you signed up for a course. The kind of course that might very well change your life, even just a little. You signed up for it enthusiastically! Or maybe with hesitation. Or maybe with a lot of irritation and ambivalence. Regardless, some part of you chose this experience and desires the change this course could bring.

Here is a secret. Whenever we choose change, some other part of us will have to die in the process. Even if we want that part to die, that part of us will kick and scream and avoid and sabotage and do all kinds of cray-cray stuff to avoid you taking this course.

How Pre-Course Resistance Shows Up and What To Do About It.

Money
This is the number one form of resistance. Everyone has a story about money and it generally is along the lines of there isn't enough of it. Here is the truth: money is energy, and digging out all the beliefs and fears and scarcity about money is the first step to having more of it.

There is an art to truly manifesting money without grip or panic. It takes a clean slate of "I am worth it" and "I can have it" combined with some planning and some game. It is all possible.

Avoidance
So you signed up for the course but you don't take care of your flights, you haven't cleared your schedule, you don't do the pre-work or the calls. You are avoiding participation in the hopes that no one will notice, but the truth is, the only thing you are avoiding is yourself!

In this place, notice where you are avoiding and call it out. Connect and tell someone. It's a good moment to look at other places you avoid in your life.

Perfection
So after you avoid, you can't possibly take the course because you haven't done the work! You missed the calls so might as well skip the whole thing. Here's the thing: your program is whatever happens. If you miss the calls then you miss the calls and that probably happened so you could look at your avoidance. It's all perfect and you will get all the benefit no matter how it goes down.

This is a good place to get conscious of what you think isn't perfect and start to reframe its perfection.

Criticism/Suspicion
There is something wrong with everything. Your inability to get in alignment with the course prevents you from fully connecting with the experience. The content, the teachers, the students, the location. "I would do it if..." "It would be better if..." "It's not what I signed up for..."

This is a good place to write out your expectations and what you need. Ask yourself if you are communicating clearly and getting your desires into the room. "Beneath every complaint, there is a desire."

Victimhood
There was this one time when these very bad people did something to you and you somehow ended up in this course. You were tricked and robbed and sold. How could they! You never wanted to take the course but they tied you up and stole your credit card and made you do it! Yeah. You know this story. Now drop it.

A good way to unwind victimhood is to write out all the ways you created this experience that you're having and reflect on how being a victim prevents you from being responsible. Responsibility is usually the thing we are avoiding when we hold onto a victim story. Ask "who would I have to be if I was responsible?"

Life
Yup. It happens to the best of us. There is work, family, kids, death, pets, bills, obligations, and the list goes on. This is one of the easiest ways to opt-out of your deeper choice because it seems so incredibly legit. The truth is, all of it can wait the number of days you are giving to yourself so that you become the person you signed up to be.

When life gets in the way, it's usually a way where you don't put yourself first. Somehow there is always something that comes first. This is a good place to look at desire and havingness. What are some things you desire and what is in the way of you having them?

Just like everything else, pre-course resistance is an opportunity to know yourself better. If you can begin to see and work with patterns that arise, you can identify them and work through them in other parts of your life. The result is that you have more of what you want.